2008年7月31日 星期四

Bitter melon enlists a neighborhood

By Kimberly W. Moy, Globe Correspondent | July 20, 2005

So you thought broccoli had a bad rap.

Andi Sutton probably has one of the hardest food publicity jobs around -- promoting bitter melon. With its grooved, gourd-like appearance, bright green color, seeded flesh, and yes, very bitter taste, the melons are loved by some, and simply too weird for others.

She is director of public relations for the five-month-old National Bitter Melon Council, an organization formed as part of an art and social research project that looks at life in the South End. Sutton would like bitter melon to have the same following that garlic does at its annual Gilroy, Calif., festival and clams do at their celebration in Yarmouth, Maine. To that end, Sutton has recruited South End eateries, from the local pizzerias to upscale restaurants, to create dishes for Bitter Melon Week, an event that runs from July 22 to 30. But this food fest is unusual. After you try bitter melon at one of the participating restaurants, which include Hamersley's Bistro, Botucatu, Polka Dog Bakery, and B&G Oysters, you can collect a binder cover at a local gallery to create your own melon recipe book.

Bitter melon already has a local connection: The crop is grown in the Berkeley Street community gardens, mostly by Asian gardeners, who consider the bumpy, pale green squash a healthy part of the diet.

Part of the idea is to build a network, said Sutton, 24, who works a ''day job" waiting tables at Central Kitchen in Cambridge. She has received mixed reactions but hopes at least 20 restaurants will participate. ''I'm encouraging them to think creatively," she said. ''It doesn't have to be a star ingredient; it can be a garnish."

Sutton has been doing a bit of testing herself, concocting a bitter melon martini from a syrup she created, and making bitter melon pickles, as well as a bitter melon and honeydew ice cream, in which the bitter flavor cuts away the heavy dairy taste, she said.

Another goal in the project is creating a sense of connection among diners as they experience a mostly new tastetogether. ''Even among Asians, it's foreign enough that you have a lot of opinions about it," said Hiroko Kikuchi, one of the lead artists of ''Sifting the Inner Belt," a yearlong effort to examine South End life through projects that include enlisting local restaurants to make dishes with bitter melon.

Priscilla Lee's reaction to the exhibit might be a typical response among the younger generation of Asian Americans. ''My mom likes this stuff; I find it a little bitter," said Lee, of Somerville.

In Japan, bitter melon has caught on in recent years, as people latched onto the idea of adopting some of the eating habits of Okinawa, south of Japan's main islands. Okinawans are known to live longer and have a lower incidence of cancer, said Yuko Torigoe, a Chestnut Hill dentist. ''In the grocery store, you see all this goya, goya, goya," Japanese for ''bitter melon."

The concept of Bitter Melon Week initially surprised Sara Plabutong, manager of Equator restaurant on Washington Street, who grew up in Thailand and somewhat reluctantly ate her mother's bitter melon dishes. ''It seemed like the melon everyone forgot," said Plabutong, 38. She wasn't sure how her customers would react to a bitter melon special, ''because I knew it was medicine. My mother told me anything that's bitter is medicine."

But she also recalled a soup her mother would prepare, of hollowed-out bitter melon stuffed with a mixture of ground pork, herbs, coriander, black pepper, soy sauce, and a little fish sauce. ''As long as she made that soup, I could handle it."

Equator's chef experimented with making a bitter melon version of green papaya salad, spiced with dried shrimp, cherry tomatoes, shredded carrot, ground peanuts, and a sweetened lime dressing. Though it was a little bitter, Plabutong found she could handle that salad too. ''I forgot about the bitterness of the bitter melon."

For canine companions, Polka Dog Bakery on Shawmut Avenue will be making treats with bitter melon, peaches, honeydew, cinnamon, ''lots of local fresh honey," and spelt flour. Manager Evan Myers, 35, made a similar salad for himself, adding dried cranberries, cilantro, and a vinaigrette of rice wine and blood orange. ''I just sliced it up; the flavors all kind of macerate a little bit. And the cilantro really cut down on the bitter taste, because the cilantro has a depth to it," he said.

At Botucatu, a Peruvian-Brazilian restaurant on West Dedham Street, owner Ricardo Villon, 69, last week experimented with sauteing bitter melon with beef, red onions, and tomatoes. He also topped Peruvian spinach-basil pesto and linguini with deep-fried bitter melon rings.

''He said he thinks the key is to mix it with a strong flavor," Sutton said, translating from Spanish, ''so that when you chew, the flavors balance each other out."

For a list of participating restaurants, go to www.bittermelon.org. ''Sifting the Inner Belt," exhibit runs through July 31 at the Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St., 617-426-8835.

2008年7月28日 星期一

Eel drink goes on sale for Japan's hot summer

The Associated Press

Kyodo News

A Japanese chef uses a fan to prepare grilled eels at an eel restaurant specializing in eels in this central Japanese city of Nagoya on Thursday July 24, 2008. The restaurant, which handles only home-grown eels, was crowded with customers who want to beat the summer heat with grilled eels on Thursday.

It's the hottest season of the year in Japan, and that means it's eel season. So, bottom's up!

A canned drink called "Unagi Nobori," or "Surging Eel," made by Japan Tobacco Inc., hit the nation's stores this month just ahead of Japan's annual eel-eating season, company spokesman Kazunori Hayashi said Monday.

"It's mainly for men who are exhausted by the summer's heat," Hayashi said of the beverage, believed to be the first mass-produced eel drink in Japan.

Many Japanese believe eating eel boosts stamina in hot weather.

The fizzy, yellow-colored drink contains extracts from the head and bones of eel and five vitamins - A, B1, B2, D and E - contained in the fish.

The Japanese particularly like to eat eel on traditional eel days, which fall on July 24 and Aug. 5 this year.

Demand for eel is so high that Japan has been hit by scores of eel fraud cases, including a recent high-profile incident in which a government ministry publicly scolded two companies for mislabeling eel imported from China as being domestically grown.

The eel involved in recent scandals was prepared in a popular "kaba-yaki" style, in which it is broiled and covered with a sweet sauce. The $1.30 drink costs about one-tenth as much as broiled eel, but has a similar flavor.

Eel extract is also used in cookies and pies made in Japan's biggest eel producing town, Hamamatsu.

Spumoni, or spumone, is a molded Italianice cream made with layers of different colors and flavors, usually containing candied fruits and nuts. Typically it is of three flavors, with a fruit/nut layer between them. The ice cream layers are often mixed with whipped cream. Chocolate and pistachio are the typical flavors of the ice cream layers, and the fruit/nut layer often contains cherry bits.

It is an 'original' ice cream flavor, yet is considered unorthodox by today's standards and is sometimes overlooked. The addition of candied fruit and nuts likens the spumoni flavor to that of a fruitcake. The fruit particularly makes spumoni taste clean and refreshing. It can be served alone, or with thin wafer or butter cookies.

Because of immigration influx, it is also very popular in Argentina.[citation needed] In the United States, spumoni ice cream can be found year-round, but if not, it is most likely available during the winter. Ironically, perhaps, August 21 is National Spumoni Day in the US.[1]

Notes

Summer vegetables have the power to cool

2008/7/28

I went to the Todoroki Valley in southern Tokyo the other day. Thanks to the verdant foliage over the trilling stream, the temperature was about 5 degrees cooler than in the city. As I ambled along a footpath, I came across a slender waterfall that Buddhist monks use for training. The cascading water formed a refreshing parabola. I had the idle thought that the water hitting the crown of my head should instantly whip me into shape.

The tsuyu rainy season has been declared over in many parts of Japan, and summer is now here in full force. To beat the heat, I tried a dish called hiya jiru (literally, cold soup) for a start. A Miyazaki Prefecture specialty, it's a very simple fare of chilled miso-based soup poured over a bowl of plain boiled rice. Like when you've popped an ice cube in your mouth, the dish definitely cooled me off. The refreshing sensation was enhanced by the crunchy texture of the bits of cucumber and myoga (a kind of ginger native to Japan) in the chilled soup.

Judy Ongg, a Taiwan-born actress and singer, is well-versed in the Chinese culinary tradition of incorporating ingredients with medicinal benefits into one's diet. She told me once, "Summer vegetables have the power to eliminate heat from your body." Any food in season seems to pack nutrients that help us eat our way to health.

Novelist Shotaro Ikenami (1920-1990) noted in his essay titled "Tokyo no Natsu" (Summer in Tokyo) that when the summer heat took away his appetite for breakfast, he made do with pickled eggplant. He wrote: "The sheer pleasure of biting into a small (pickled) eggplant, with a dab of mustard, is simply beyond words."茄子

People in the old days knew how to cool their bodies from within with the aid of garden-fresh summer vegetables. They also knew how to revive their flagging appetite by jolting the palate and gullet with something cold, peppery hot or sour. There is no reason for us not to borrow their wisdom. The scorching summer heat will surely get us down if all we do is slurp cold somen noodles in an air-conditioned room.

Tokihiko Kusama (1920-2003), a haiku poet known as an epicure, penned this piece: "From the basin of a waterfall/ A chilled tomato/ Makes an escape." Perhaps the tomato had fallen out of a net bag behind a rock outcropping. Picturing in my mind's eye a small red globe bobbing away and disappearing down the clear stream, I get temporary relief from the heat.

The cooling power of vegetables, amply boosted under the blazing summer sun, is not to be taken lightly.